Man To Stand Trial In Stabbing

James Caplinger said he was shocked when his friend Christopher “Spaz” Jefferson returned his car.

“It was covered in blood,” Caplinger said Wednesday. “Inside, outside, all over the seats.’

He said Jefferson offered him no immediate explanation.

“It was like, There’s your car. See ya later. Well talk,” Caplinger recalled.

On the basis of Caplinger’s preliminary hearing testimony and an eyewitness account of Maria Riven, who saw James Curtis Adams fatally stabbed in front of her Grant Street home in the early morning hours of Sept. 8, District Justice Richard Martin II ordered Jefferson – a York resident whose real name is Nigul Jervon Johnson – to stand trial on charges of criminal homicide and conspiracy

First Deputy District Attorney Lori Yost argued that Johnson, 21, was one of three people who beat and fatally stabbed Adams, 35, at Grant and North streets. No other arrests have been made in connection with the muder, she said.

Adams was stabbed three times in the chest, Yost said, with one wound determined to be fatal and two “that could have contributed” to his death.

Maria Rivera told Martin she had peeked through her window when her dog started barking and she went out to investigate.

“I walked outside before he even got hurt with the telephone to let them know I was calling 911,” she said. “To give whoever was killing him the chance to walk away without killing him.”

Rivers, who could not pick Johnson out of a lineup Tuesday at York County Prison, admitted she could not identify any of the three attackers.

She said Adams scuffed with one person in a breezeway across the street and then ran past her. Another person, hiding beside her porch, tripped him and Adams fell at the corner, she said.

Two of the men began heating and stabbing Adams, who tried to fend off the blows with his left arm, Rivera said. A third person appeared in a dark car that he left idling in front of her and joined the fight, she said.

That person pulled down Adams’ arm and, Rivera said, she saw the knife plunge into his chest.

Rivera said the trio left Adams on the ground and got into the car.

“The victim got up, stumbling, and he walked over to the car. . . and he started hitting on the window on the drivers side,” Rivera said. “He said, ‘look what the — you did to me. What are you going to do now?”

She said the three people got out of the car and started beating Adams again. Rivera said that while she was distracted by her 911 call, the car suddenly left and Adams disappeared. She said she thought he had been taken along in the car.

According to police reports, Adams made his way home, about a half-block away, before collapsing.

Caplinger testified he loaned the car to Johnson, whom he had known for years as Jefferson, for $150 and some crack. He said Johnson called him in the following days and said he had driven a friend who “got cut” to the hospital. Caplinger said in ensuing conversations, Johnson urged him to get rid of the car.

Heather Wilhelm, the mother of Johnson’s 14-month-old son, testified Johnson appeared at her residence around 2 a.m. Sept. 8 and volunteered that he “cut someone.” She said Johnson, who was wearing only jean shorts, had no visible injuries or blood on him.

Johnson, of the 800 block of Chanceford Avenue, remains in York County Prison without ball pending his formal arraignment hi Common Pleas Court on Jan. 28.